In this episode of Innately Intuitive Podcast, I’m talking with Susan Luddy of The Infinite Path. Susan is an End of Life Transition Guide who offers Elder Care and End of Life Doula Services.

Our conversation touches upon…

• Susan’s path to becoming a death doula

• the way in which intuition moves through her life

• the importance of end-of-life preparation

…and more. It’s a rich, deep, moving episode. Enjoy.

The Transcript

Hi. Welcome to Innately Intuitive Podcast, where owning your intuition is as much about raising your vibration as it is about grounding you. I'm Ellen M. Gregg, your host.

In case you're new, it will be helpful to know that a lot of channeling happens here, including the topics of all solo episodes. It's one of the ways my spirit team keeps me awake and present.

Today, I’m sharing a conversationwith Susan Luddy of The Infinite Path. She is an end-of-life transition guide offering end-of-life and elder care doula services. She is a death doula, and a very intuitive one at that. Enjoy.

E: Hello, Susan. How are you?

S: I'm wonderful. How are you, Ellen?

E: Very well, thank you. I've been really looking forward to our conversation today.

S: Me too.

E: I'm so glad. And so- Oh, boy. This isn't supposed to happen. I have a channeled message locked in. What the heck? I'm just going to let it come through, because I'm not going to be able to talk otherwise.

And what we notice here is that we are simply acknowledging that this will be an important conversation because, Susan, the work that you are doing at this time - that you are working toward, that you are leaning into - is something that is very much in accord with the dynamics of the intuition.

S: Absolutely.

E: Okay. Wow. Yeah. Well, so, that sometimes happens, but now at least I feel like I can breathe again because they were not going to let me go without having that come out. So, I apologize and yet that's very interesting.

S: Yeah, I always wondered, like, all the training I've done and the gifts that have come through and I've stepped into… Would they make sense, eventually? Why was there such an eclectic collection of things that were going on?
And until I stepped into this role as, you know, a certified end-of-life doula, an elder care doula, an ordained minister and end-of-life celebrant, I couldn't see how everything was coming together.
And it all fits in now, in my life, so it's amazing.

E: That is amazing. So, when you look at, then, those pieces that came together toward this point, what did those pieces include?

S: So, you think about, you know, I was in marketing and communications and public relations for over twenty years, but then there was this other side of me that was interested in developing my intuition.
So, as I leaned more into that, I got into law of attraction and I became someone who's known for being a master manifester. And I've done classes on that, you know.
I've taken Reiki one and two, so I’m a Reiki practitioner. I've taken integrated energy therapy training, so I also do that. And then I also did training to, you know, further develop my intuition and lean more into it years ago, and I came out as a psychic medium, you know.
And more recently, in the last year, when I was sitting in silence during thepandemic, figuring out what I really wanted to do, what kept coming back to me was hospice work. And this has been going on for about ten years, where I've been thinking about it, but I didn't feel I was there yet and I didn't know exactly what type of position I would be looking at.
And then one day I was sitting in silence and I hadn't, you know, searched anything online or hadn't talked or anything about it, and up popped on Facebook a free 90-minute webinar on becoming an end-of-life doula. So, I took that. And the moment I took it, I knew that was it.
And then I took, you know, a complete specialist training at the DoulaGivers Institute, which is to become certified as an elder-care doula, an end-of-life doula and a care consultant - which, that is helping people put together all of their end-of-life plans, including advanced directives and the financial parts of their life, too.
It was amazing. I mean, the whole training last year that I went through for six or seven months, all these exercises I was doing and homework I had to do, kept highlighting: my whole life, I had been naturally doing these things; helping elders, you know, in their last days; helping people who are just about to die, you know, in my family. It just all came back.
Like, wow, I've been naturally doing this and not even realizing what I was doing until I took this training and became certified and started working with patients.

E: Oh, my gosh. Yes. I mean, it is amazing. To hear you lay it out like that is… It's a bit gobsmacking, to a degree, except for the fact that I feel as though - and wonder if perhaps this is something you've noticed, as well - for those of us who take on this sort of work, that which is deeply spiritual, highly intuitive, that if we were all to do that sort of reflection or inventory of the work that we did before that, the things we did before that, that we would notice something very similar.
Because it's that way for me. And it's one of those things where, having been, originally, an office manager for a couple of decades and all that went along with it...
I mean, I had to be a person who was comfortable working with a lot of other people. I had to be a good communicator. I had to just be comfortable speaking in front people, whether it was one or two or sometimes a couple hundred. And all that went along with it, too; the marketing pieces.
There's so much that I look back and I just shake my head in wonder, because then came the Reiki, then came the intuitive stuff, then came the holistic wellness practitioner and the side certifications that came with that. And the work I do, as with the work you do, is the sum of its parts.
So, I find it remarkable and really do wonder if that's the case for most practitioners in this line of work, this breadth of work.

S: I wonder, too, because I think I spent most of my life not realizing how intuitive I was because I just thought it was me, you know. Like, when I worked in the business setting, you know, for doing marketing, communications, PR - even before that, as an executive assistant - I always had been working with executives.
And I would get to a point where I could write in their voice exactly, all their correspondence, and they wouldn't know the difference whether they had written it or me. Or I could finish their sentences even if they were talking about something highly technical I really don't have a lot of knowledge in, you know. Or I'd be in the interview and someone would ask me a question and I would come out with this brilliant answer.
But then, when I was walking out to my car in the parking lot, I would think, ”Where did that come from?” Because I didn't even know how to answer that question.But out came this brilliant answer, you know. And I didn't realize for a long time that it was more than just me, you know, doing all these things, and how intuitive I am.
And I just think it's just a natural part of who I am. I don't realize there's a difference between the two, you know?

E: Yeah. And so, thinking about that aspect of it then, how did you come to discern that it wasn't you? It wasn't some, you know, piece of information that your brain had filed away and it just kind of came out at the right time?

S: There's such a subtle difference. I still have a hard time sometimes telling, you know. I mean, I know when an answer comes to me, or something I say comes to me, and I think, “Where did that come from?” Then I know, you know, that that's the intuition kicking in. You know?
When I'm about to go, “Wait a minute. How did that happen,” you know. Or even things like seeing anything to do with my safety, like seeing a truck go through a stop sign five seconds before it happens. And then I stop and it happens, you know.
Or seeing a ladder fly off in front of me on the highway, off of a truck, but I moved over like five seconds before, because I saw it in my mind's eye happen, you know. There's been a lot about safety.
Climbing the red rocks out here in Sedona, getting 80% of the way, you know, up the rocks and then hearing in my head, ”It's not safe for you to keep going.” I get mad because, you know, I had a goal, you know - a little too goal-focused sometimes instead of the journey - and I have to turn around. I look down and I see a giant peace sign made out of rocks that I did not see on the way up. And maybe that was the point, right?
I mean, all sorts of things like that happen, you know. Or I've been driving across town to go to a certain trailhead and I'll have GPS on just because there's road construction, but my car is taking me to a completely different area five miles away. And sometimes I just go with it.
I don't know what trailhead it’s bringing me to, but it’s not the one I was going to go to. But then I get there and I end up finding this amazing sacred cave or something while I’m out on the trail. So, I’m like, “Okay. Apparently, I'm supposed to go down this trail today.”
Or I run into someone. I love these types of synchronicities, right? I'm off trail hiking, like, a couple months ago and I ran into this woman and we start talking, and she's a hospice nurse in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And here I'm an end-of-life doula who works for hospices. Really, you know? I mean, like, you know, it’s just, you know, things like that. You know? I mean, we meet and we talk and we find out we have fifty things in common, you know, just in the middle of the woods, off the trail somewhere. So, yeah.

E: It's beautiful. And also, I feel like oftentimes it's my observation - and I'm sure it's because of the way the human brain works - that people expect intuition to work like our mind does; to make complete sense.

S: Right.

E: Like, just to be very tidy and compartmentalized. And it isn't. I mean, sometimes it can be, but usually it isn't. It can seem really random unless - like with you and your… I’m going to call them “safety notifications” - you understand how to interpret them and you take action.
Otherwise though, things come through - whether it's clairvoyantly, clairaudiently, whatever - that we might go, “Errr… That doesn't make sense.”
And then you're in that very human position of, “Do I listen to that? Do I pay attention to that or do I just keep doing what I'm doing?” And-

S: I think-

E: Yeah.

S: I was going to say, I think, you know, the thing with intuition is, once you know and you have the knowing and you've stepped into the work and you've been paying attention to your intuition, letting it guide you, the moments where you choose to ignore it, at least for me now, I get slapped down.
Like, I used to be able to get away with it. So one example, which wasn't funny at all, was I was driving to a trailhead and it was one of the days where my GPS was taking me somewhere else. And I'm like, ”Oh this is Sedona’s vortex energy.” You know? It does mess up your phone and GPS sometimes. And so, I ignored it.
And then I get to the trailhead and I thought, for the third time, “You know, I’ve got to replace these hiking boots because they don't have as much grip on the bottom as they used to.” And it was the third time I got that. Right?
And then I start walking up the trail and I decide I don't want to go up the trail, I’m going to climb up the steep rocks. So, I climb up them, but it took every muscle in my body to get up them. So, by the time I got to the top I was exhausted, you know, which is not good. Because you don't want to completely spend all your energy and then have your legs like noodles, because you have to come back down. You know?
And I rested for an hour and a half, but I was still wiped out. And I came down and I knew this one area was going to be tricky coming down because I had gone up it. But I'm like, ”Well, I'll do the butt slide down it.” Because I do that on a regular basis. You know? Except I wasn't really paying attention to the pitch of the rock.
So, when I slid down, I took off really fast and I couldn't drag my hands or feet enough to slow me down. And when I hit the dirt, it wasn't level; it was pitched forward. So, it flipped me. I hit the dirt and flipped; completely flipped over, you know, head over tail. And I kept rolling. So, I flipped, and I flipped off of a one-foot ledge. I kept rolling. I literally went off a two-foot ledge. And then I flipped one more time and I just stopped.
And right before me - like, six inches in front of me - is over a twenty-foot drop. Right? And my legs and arms are shredded. They're bleeding. I've got cactus needles, dirt, you name it and rocks embedded in me. And I'm just sitting there and I just burst out crying, because my whole body started shaking because it realized how close I just came to getting very hurt or worse. You know?
And I just started crying. And then I looked up and I saw people way across from me watching me. And they're looking to see if I was okay, so I stood up. And they waved and kept going, you know? But I'm telling you, I know that was the biggest warning I've ever gotten.
Like, “Stop ignoring what you know to be true. Why do you discount those thoughts? You know? Yeah. There was a number of things. I should have followed my GPS. I should have not climbed the rocks that day with boots that don't grip as well. You know? Because that was a big reason why I couldn't stop myself going down that rock.
So, it was just- Thank God, I was okay. And I really did not have- Aside from all the cuts and scrapes and that took a while to heal; my head, my shoulders never touched the ground. You know? I landed on my backpack each time I flipped. And my water bottle’s really big, and it kind of was centered on my spine, so my back didn't hurt.
I didn't have any aches and pains. I didn’t have togo to the chiropractor. You know? I literally just got scraped up. And it's like, how was I not protected, you know, to be able to literally stop right before I went off that 20 foot ledge? It was really a wake-up call. So, I can honestly say, since then - that was in June last year - I have not ignored my intuition since.

Please note: This transcript is incomplete as of April 20. I will complete it as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

Resources

The Infinite Path

Doulagivers Institute

Podcast music: “For Spring Inspiration” by Praded, licensed through AudioJungle.